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I wonder how we really think about Lent given its overtones:
giving things up, not enjoying ourselves, facing up to our sins, trying to
do better. Is there any
good news for us in Lent to bear us up or is their only a downside? To help
us ...
A WEEK AT THE GYM: ONE MAN'S STORY
Dear Diary: For my 65th birthday this year, my
wife (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health
club for me. Although still in shape since playing on my college tennis
team, I decided I would go ahead and give it a try. I called and made my
reservation with a personal trainer, Belinda. She identified herself as a
26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and
swimwear. My wife was pleased with my enthusiasm.
The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my
progress.
Monday:
Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but it
was well worth it when I met Belinda. She is like a Greek goddess, blond,
dancing eyes, a great smile. Belinda gave me a tour and showed me the
machines. After five minutes on the treadmill,
she noted my pulse was way fast. I
attribute it to standing next to her. Belinda was encouraging as I did my
sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole
time she was around. This is going to be a
fantastic
week!!
Tuesday:
I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the
door. Belinda made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air
-- then she put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the
treadmill, but I made the full mile. Belinda's rewarding smile made it all
worthwhile. I feel
great!!
It's a whole new life for me.
Wednesday:
The only way I can brush my teeth is by lying the toothbrush
on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I think I have a
hernia. Driving was okay as long as I didn't try
to steer or stop. I parked on top of a Geo in the
club lot. Belinda was impatient.
She said my screams were bothering other club
members. Her voice is a little too perky for early in the morning, and when
she scolds, she has this nasally whiny annoying voice. My chest hurt on the
treadmill, so Belinda put me on the stair monster. Who would invent a
machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Belinda told
me some nonsense that it was good for me.
Thursday:
Belinda was waiting for me with her vampire-like teeth
exposed as her thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn't
help being a half an hour late; it took me that long to tie my shoes.
Belinda led me to the dumbbells. When she was not
looking, I ran and hid in the men's room. She sent Lars to find me. Then, as
punishment, she put me on the rowing machine -- which I sank.
Friday:
I hate that Belinda more than any human being has ever hated
any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic
cheerleader. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable
pain, I would beat her with it. Belinda wanted me to work on my triceps.
I don't have any triceps!
And if you don't want dents in the floor, don't hand me the barbells or
anything heavier than a sandwich. The treadmill flung me off and I landed on
a health and nutrition teacher.
Saturday:
She, Belinda,
left a message on my answering machine in her grating, shrilly voice
wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing her made me want to
smash it. However, lacking the strength to use even the TV remote,
I caught 11 straight hours of the Weather Channel.
Sunday:
I'm having the church van can pick me up for services today
so I can go and thank the Lord that this week is over. I will also pray that
next year my wife (what an idiot) will choose a gift for me that is fun --
like a root canal.
Now to be fair, dentists claim
that root canals get a bad rap!
The wrong approach to Lent would be to view it as a hideous, unbearable
burden. If we see Lent only as a time to be ever yet more aware of ways in
which we fail, while not discovering at the same time any experience of
God’s Good News, it would be an intolerable burden, something to avoid at
all cost, or to skate through as quickly as possible.
Thank you for the ashes, please pass me the
Easter Lilly.
Today, I want you to know and receive and accept Good News, the Good News of
Love, Hope and Forgiveness that God offers us even in Lent.
And in this discovery to move into a new way of
trusting and believing and following Jesus Christ. This Good News, the Good
News that God has for us this Lent, is expressed
very well in Jesus’ little
parable of the fig tree
that was saved and given another chance. Though it had failed to be
fruitful, the gardener, the one who loved it and
tended it believed in it enough to convince his employer, the tree’s owner,
to give it one more chance, one more year, one
more opportunity to do what he believed it would do:
produce its fruit.
The significance of this
parable,
the sheer grace offered in this second chance and the extent of the emotions
involved came home to me this past week in a report I heard on National
Public Radio. The report provided an update on the life of Calvin Crawford
Johnson Jr. In 1983, Johnson was sentenced to life
in prison for a rape and burglary, crimes he always said he did not commit.
"With God as my witness, I have been falsely accused of these crimes,"
Johnson said. "I'm an innocent man, and I pray in the name of Jesus Christ
that the truth will eventually be brought out." Sixteen years later, in 1999,
Calvin walked out of the same Clayton County courthouse a free man after DNA
evidence proved conclusively he had not committed
the crime.
Until the recent case in which another Georgia man, Pete Williams,
was officially exonerated after serving nearly 22 years in prison,
Johnston’s 16 years had been the longest prison term served by someone
subsequently freed by DNA evidence. Nationally,
195 people have been cleared of crimes for which they had served time.
Today Calvin Johnson, who was a college graduate from his before his
incarceration, works as a MARTA Supervisor.
"Everything is new," says Johnson. "I mean, you come out, and it's a big
world. Sometimes, you just want to look. You catch yourself just looking at
everything, just watching people, actions, how to dress...
just to see what's going on around you." Johnson is so thrilled with his job
and with his new life that he smiles almost constantly. He says he has a lot
to smile about, helped by strong family support and his college education.
"I have a steady job. I'm a homeowner. I have a lovely wife. I have a
daughter. I have a little dog that wags his tail," he says. "Basically, you
could say I'm living the American dream." What
a second chance!
What a turnaround for this man who had done nothing wrong to deserve 16
years in prison, including time in hard labor! What a great attitude he
demonstrates as he gets about living his now free, fruitful life.
Jesus’ little
parable of the fig tree
that was spared convinces me that Jesus would intervene for the Calvin
Johnston’s of the world, those wrongly accused, incorrectly labeled, denied
justice, held without due process. But the radical nature of this parable
pushes the envelope even further.
Because unlike Calvin Johnston, this little tree
had done something wrong, it had failed to do the one thing it was raised to
do: it had failed to produce any fruit.
Yet despite this record, despite its failure, the
gardener still intervened, and this failed, failing tree was granted a
second chance, a new beginning.
This new beginning, this second chance,
is an
offer to all of us from God.
We are given the opportunity to do our repenting,
to turn aside from doing our own thing so we can accept all that God has
done and is doing and will do in our lives. Jesus message began, “Repent,
for the kingdom of God is at hand.” In our society,
therapists serve as priests, guilt is explained away, repentance is replaced
by the spurious claims of the self-help gospel. In response,
the church must speak and act its Good News:
that our merciful God welcomes back repentant sinners. We need to be quick
to recognize and identify that the promises of cheap grace offered by new
age gurus and self-help advocates are “not the bread that sustains.” God’s
message and relationship with people is good news precisely because it
begins with the acceptance of the news that we are sinners in need of
repentance and that we have a God willing, ready and able to forgive.
So, sad news and bad news or Good
News and Great News is the question.
Sad and bad because we must be open, honest, truthful in acknowledging our
complete and utter failure to be the people God needs us to be or even the
people that we think we should be ourselves. Good and great news because our
God offers us as we repent a second chance, a starting over, a beginning
again. This, my friends, is how God chooses to relate with us and to us, and
open us to a new relationship, a new friendship.
Accept
no substitutes!
Maybe you say I can’t stop... I can’t stop
drinking, I can’t stop taking extra painkillers, I can’t kick the habit.
Jesus Christ is asking that you be given another opportunity to discover how
God’s love can change your living.
Accept
no substitutes!
Maybe you say my life goes on well for a while but then an old
jealousy leads me to say bad things about good people or an old grudge
taints my attitude to someone in my family or in my church.
Jesus Christ is asking that you be given another opportunity to discover how
God’s love can change your living.
Accept
no substitutes!
Maybe you say I am just too bad, too far gone. I have let God down, I
have let my family down, I have let myself down too many times, in some
terrible ways... why would God bother about me?
Jesus Christ is asking that you be given another opportunity to discover how
God’s love can change your living.
Accept
no substitutes!
Maybe you say I’m a good person, I never do anything bad, I always
try to help others... maybe I don’t need forgiven.
Jesus Christ is asking that you be given another opportunity to
discover how God’s love can change your living.
Accept
no substitutes!
Maybe you say I was a very faithful Christian … once. I was heart and
soul, like some of the people I see helping and working around this church
but I abandoned that life and took a back seat.
Jesus Christ is asking that you be given another opportunity to discover how
God’s love can change your living.
Accept
no substitutes!
Maybe you say I’m looking for a new or renewed experience of faith or
a new direction to move me forward in life. Jesus
Christ is asking that you be given another opportunity to discover how God’s
love can change your living.
Accept
no substitutes!
Maybe you say I’ve screwed up royally...
for years I’ve known what I needed to do but I never could live that way.
Jesus Christ is asking that you be given another opportunity to discover how
God’s love can change your living.
Accept
no substitutes!
Whatever you say,
whatever you think about yourself, about your life, about the Church, about
God, about faith, about failures real and imagined,
Jesus Christ loves you, Jesus Christ loves the world.
So live anew!
Accept
no substitutes! Amen. |
